Empowering the Nemicorn

I know, I'm mixing my metaphors. But they are my metaphors, dammit.

I just got through burning the rough cut of my CD, NEMICORN, to give to my friend and musical advisor, Alan MacDonald, to see what he thinks. Without his guidance and insights I would not have made the treacherous leap from page to sound, I trust his experience (not always abandoning my own gut feelings, but a wise man asks counsel).

The fifteen tracks I am giving him to evaluate are, in order of how they appear on the draft CD, are:

1. Damascus (3). Lyrical, beautiful, delicate, earnest. You know it's a trap, but what can you do to resist?
2. The Nosferatu's Quandry. Now there's a bit of an edge there. This funk-laced, pelvic piece of self-examination.
3. Right Set of Lips. A dance of words and music, acoustic and charming. And oh so true.
4. Fallen and Falling Angels. I loved rocking out on this one. Pretentious? Yes. But tasty.
5. Brisant Revelations. Little did I know when I scribbled these words on a napkin in the Moondog Cafe in Pasadena, waiting to read at one of Larry Jaffe's legendary open microphoen events, that this would become an art rock spasmodic expression of a vow I believed in, beyond the faithlessness of others. (And, I might add, the source of the line "Empowering the Juggernaut).
6. Joining the Machine. A macabre industrial malevolence. Bloodless and organic. And, if I may ask my own preconscious, what the fwarck is "the Great God Gear"?
7. Texture of Your Tongue. Bongos? Who let the bongos in here? I did. They lend the pelvis to this electronic seduction.
8. The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful). Sigh. Just sigh. Wistful, romantic, pained. I could not have foreseen anything this lovely from an unrequited passion.
9. Theocricide. Since I don't do drugs, I have no idea where the idea to have multi-layered synthesized horns frame this agonized ode to my failed love affair with Psyche.
10. Thunder Out of Valhalla. Actually "We Owe Debt to Memory". But after I listened to the pop-Wagnerian staging of the music, I had no choice but to bend to the heavy metal crowd in the naming of this production.
11. Pink Jade - Soft as Dawn. Love the bass. Love the piano. Loved the woman. "Soft as dawn" as an urgent, ardent plea for passion.
12. Love Gods (Multivox). Who needs absinthe, when you have a brain thrice cooked by disease to fevers over 105 degrees? "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" as a recitation of a pantheon of personalities.
13. Thetis. My paean to the Pacific Coast, my true, spiritual home. A recent work, only since I tasted again the fire of the Santa Ana Winds on my face. That I gave up my home for a false goddess still confounds me.
14. Wild and Defiled, Along the Way. Multilayered guitars with a slight RHCP feel, but a bit more upbeat...even, dare I say? Pop, in sensibility.
15. Darfur (Jesus Wept). Not sure if I wish to include this powerful statement in this CD, or hold it for the next, but it will be heard by ever ear I can open to give hope for a region torn by more tragedy than imaginable to most people.

So that's the rough list (and you can see the cover, above)...so, I'll let you know what he has to say...